West Berkshire CAMRA WB-40 to delebrate CAMRA's 40th birthday.

CAMRA’s 40th Birthday to be lubricated by WB-40 in West Berkshire and beyond!

The Campaign for Real Ale was formed on 16 March 1971 by four journalists
whilst visiting a pub on holiday in Ireland. They had become deeply disillusioned with
the domination of the UK licensed trade by a handful of national brewing companies, determined to push standardised keg beer brands into pubs to replace traditional ales from local breweries.

40 years of campaigning later CAMRA has 120,000 members and cask beer from local and regional breweries is available in many pubs. There are now more than 3,000 different real ales being brewed in the UK by over 750 real ale breweries.

Five Berkshire CAMRA members have laid the groundwork for a 40th birthday celebration to be lubricated by a beer named WB-40 and brewed by West Berkshire Brewery in Yattendon.
Simon Grist and Sue Thirlaway, of Berkshire South-East branch, thought it would be a good idea
for a local brewery to develop a special beer for this occasion. Chris Marriage, convinced Dave and Helen Maggs that the West Berkshire Brewery could supply pubs in Berkshire and beyond with a 4.0% ABV strength beer to tie in with the 4.0 decade anniversary of CAMRA’s founding. Alex Agar came up with the name WB-40. Richard Lock designed the eye-catching pump-clip with the slogan ‘Lubricates the parts that other beers cannot reach!’

The beer is a ruby (40th anniversary) colour and has a malty, but not sweet, character with a robust bitterness and fruity notes from all English hops.

The WD-40 Company were contacted in case they had any objections to the use of the shared blue and yellow colour scheme and the similar name on the pump clip. However, they were happy to lend their support to this CAMRA 40th birthday brew.

Adrian Bean, West Berkshire CAMRA chairman said ‘Wednesday 16th March is CAMRA’s 40th birthday. We hope people will seek out a pub serving WB-40 and drink a birthday toast to CAMRA on this day. I would like to thank everyone involved, especially those at West Berkshire Brewery, for showing their support for CAMRA.

The new WB-40 pump clip on the bar at The Gun, Wash Common, Newbury

WB-40 will be available in the following pubs across the West Berkshire and wider areas: